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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf T'?^ 

UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



T h: E 



Duty of the People 



IN 



:^0-YEMBER l^EXT. 



BY 



J. DKLAFIELD TREN-QR. 



r-K^ 



j3j^rf%C/ 



COPYRIGHTED, 1880. 



NEW YORK: 

John Polhemus, Publisher, 102 Nassau Street. 



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THE DEED, THE METHODS, THE MEN. 



Since these States became an independent people, there 
has been no presidential election weighted with one main 
issue so completely dwarfing all others as the present. 

Antagonistic views of great national problems have, in 
other elections, severed the country into two or more mutually 
hostile camps. Thereto has been superadded the natural desire 
for place and x)Ower. 

Many of these problems were of such a character that 
men of honor and conscience could reasonably take opposite 
sides. 

To-day most of them— one may say nearly all— are 
solved. 

Some reached that solution by the bloody arbitrament of 
war ; others by the nobler process of discussion in the national 
councils. 

The American people are now, at last, confronted by one 
capital issue, which forces upon all patriotic citizens the 
duty of sternl}^ holding over every minor question, and of 
deciding once for all, at the forthcoming election, whether the 
popular will, speaking through the voice of the majority of 



the citizens, and sacred until 1876, shall or shall not be the 
sole and prime source and fountain from which are derived 
the jjowers of those claiming the right to govern.* 

This master issue, distinguishing the present from all 
previous campaigns, ought, for the time being, to fuse 
patriotic citizens, of whatever political stripe, into one grand 
party — that of the American people itself. 

Many may exclaim — "But this question has already, once 
for all, been settled." 

In theory such is the case ; but the party at j)resent in 
power are there solely by having trampled in the dust this 
chief and prime right of the majority of the American people. 

This they effected by fraud, by forgery on the part of those 
acting for men ruling or leading the minority, by jDerjury and 
by force— not actually brought into play, but held in tJie 
leash, ready to be slipped in favor of those who were stifling 
the nation s voice, and therefore just as efficient as if used. 

Here let it be noted that the Republican voters, as a body, 
had no part in the original acts by which this outrage on tlie 
majesty of the American people was wrought. 

The men who dared that outrage and consummated in the 
dark the violation of that majesty, were, at the outset, a small 
band of political conspirators. They could at first be counted 
on the fingers. But, when one wing of the nation's council 
accepted the results of the crime, the face of affairs was 
changed. 

Still, let it be repeated, that with the deeds which rudely 
ousted Liberty from her seat, the Republican voters of the 
country, as a body, had nothing whatever to do. Had 



Note.— This of course means the majority of the electoral votes representing the voices of the 
various States, which, violence apart, would undonbtedly have been cast for the Democratic candi- 
date at the last election. An overwhehning majority of the popular vote coincided with the electoral 
votes of the States which would have been thus cast but for the reasons given in this paper. It is 
with this qualification that the terms "voice of the majority of the nation," "people," &c., are 
to be understood throughout. 



they been fully cognizant of any such conspiracy, they would 
certainly have done their utmost to crush it. It must he laid 
solely to the charge of the conspirators and of the Republican 
representatives who aided and abetted them. 

In dealing, therefore, witli this question, and in discuss- 
ing how this great issue should be decided, it must be fully 
and clearly borne in mind that the application of the term 
•'Republican Party" is by no means extended to the vast 
body of the Republican voters of the country. 

In commenting on the transactions with which Ave are 
dealing, the widest meaning intended to apply to the term 
Republican Party " is : tliose claiming to be its leaders, and its 
representatives in Congress. 

AYhatever of fraud, Avhatever of perjury- or forgery, what- 
ever of constructive force was employed, either directly or in- 
directl}^, by those who throttled Liberty in her exalted seat, 
was sanctioned not by the Republican voters of the countr3% 
but by the "Republican Party," in the sense just applied tO' 
that term — by men recreant to the highest trust coniided to 
them b}^ those very Republican voters — by men responsible to 
their own constituents for this great wrong-doing just as 
equalh^as to the Party against Avhom and whose constituents 
it was aimed. 

This viral matter involves considerations of far higher 
import and grander proportions than as to whether or not one 
political party saw its chosen and elected leader excluded for 
four years from the White House, or as to whether the huge 
patronage of the Federal government was for the same 
period contiolled by those who had no lawful power over it. 
This the actual, dejure President of the United States, ^fr. 
Tilden, has laid down in language of noble hrmness and 
breadth. 

Such questions are the veriest trifles when placed side hy 
side with the one pregnant query : " Did tlie liberty of tlie 



whole American people suffer violence at the hands of these 
men?" 

And here let it be at once boldly stated that if it can be 
made clear that the voice and will of the majority of the 
American people did suffer violence at their hands, then it 
was not only that majority against whom this high outrage 
was done. It involved a crime against every citizen of this 
land, of what political stripe soever— inasmuch as it was a 
conspiracy against the very foundation upon which rests the 
whole fabric of republican liberty. 

How, may it be asked, if, in such a conjuncture, the voice 
and will of only a majority of the American people suffered 
violence, can it be maintained that such violence was suffered 
by the wliole American people \ 

Because the very essence of representative republican in- 
stitutions lies in the principle that the voice of the majority 
shall prevail. 

It matters nothing, in so far as that principle is concerned, 
whether such majority happen, for the time being, to consist 
of one political party or the other. Violence done to the will 
of the majority by the acts of the minority's representatives, 
is a direct blow lemlled at the very right lohich either minority 
or majority has to Dote at all. It is like inflicting a mortal 
wound on one side of the human body. Death comes equally 
to both sides. 

If this position be not unassailable, then any expression of 
the popular will by voting is mere dumb show, and any at- 
tempt at ascertaining that will, either by ballot or otherwise, 
had better be altogether abolished. 

To abandon it is to surrender the people's right to the only 
practicable method of self-government. 

To disallow it is to adopt a set of principles the dreadful 
history of whose workings has, for the last quarter of a cen- 



tuiy, been written in torrents of blood in nearly every other 
American republic from Mexico to Patagonia, 

One tremendous experiment of a departure from this 
principle was tried among our own States. It has suf- 
ficed ! 

These are the reasons for which it may be most properly 
urged that, outside the mere question of one or the other can- 
didate holding office, the Republicans of the country suf- 
fered just as grave an affront and injustice as their opponents, 
in the very assumption that they would, through their repre- 
sentatives, lend themselves to any such deadly assault on tlie 
elective principle as was involved in this overthrow of the 
voice of the majority, which at the last election happened to 
be Democratic. 

Hence the conclusion that it was not the Democratic party 
merely, but the lohole American people, whose majesty was 
outraged at the last election ; for it was not simply a tactical 
evasion of a defeat suffered b}^ a party minority on ^.jyoUtlcal 
measure or view supported by them ; it was a defiant over- 
throw of the chief pillar of republican institutions, as recog- 
nized in this and in all coiiimonwealths of all ages. 

So much being established, the question arises, " Can the 
fact of this violence to the will of the majority of the people 
be established beyond a doubt % " 

Unfortunately for the honor of the United States of iVni erica, 
it can. 

The history of the Southern Returning Boards, of the " vis- 
iting statesmen," of the Electoral Commission, of the memora- 
ble eiglit to sereii vote and the other means by which the elec- 
toral votes of two Southern States were wrested from the. 
Democratic candidate, and the presidency finally awarded tO' 
Mr. Hayes, are matters familiar to every man in the land. 

As to whether in these Southern States awarded to his oj)- 



8 

ponent the majority of the popular vote was or was not cast 
for the Democratic candidate, and whether or not the elec- 
toral vote was also really his, it is but necessary to refer to 
the sworn testimony of the very men who themselves admit- 
ted having falsified the returns, having forged signatures to 
the electoral certificates, and done everything needful to con- 
summate the crime. The details of these doings are matters 
of common notoriety and are recorded in the files of every 
newsi)aper in the country. The question of fact, therefore, 
stands established. Indeed, the evidence, given at the time of 
the formal inquiry by Congress, against themselves and their 
accomplices, by the prime movers in these iniquities, is so 
clear and decisive that there are few honest Republicans 
unconvinced that the will of the majority of the people was 
defiantly set at naught, and that the doings of the Returning 
Boards (stimulated by promises held out to them) were that 
which carried to accomplishment the defeat of the popular 
voice and will. 

The services of these miscreants were duly recognized and 
rewarded by the gentleman whom they had foisted on the 
peojile as lawfully elected President. They claimed, and 
were in a position to demand, the " pound of fiesh." 

An opinion prevailed at the time, and still lingers among 
the people, that Mr. Evarts' great forensic effort against their 
rights lifted him into the Secretaryship of State. But then he 
was not the consort of conspirators, he merely covered their 
flank ! 

The grounds advanced as justifying the action of the 
"visiting statesmen," who induced the Returning Boards to 
throw out the votes of whole Democratic districts or parishes, 
are, from a legal and constitutional point of view, instructive. 

It was assumed by these superserviceable Republican 
patriots that the political bias of these districts or parishes 
was in favor of their party, and that, therefore, the vote in 
these would surely have been cast for their party, unless the 
voters had been menaced or intimidated, vulgo, hulldozed. 



9 

No general complaint, indeed, no complaint of any large 
proportions, on the part of the Republican voters, such as 
would justify even legal interference with the general result 
of the elections in these districts, was borne to the popular 
ear. It was upon vague, shapeless rumors that these con- 
scientious gentlemen acted. But then evidence would be 
forthcoming ! Of course it would ! How easily it was made 
to order was subsequently disclosed during the Washington 
inquiry ! The testimony there given was a nauseating sur- 
prise to every man of honor in the Republican ranks. And 
yet it was upon such evidence that unbiassed Republican 
umpires could induce the Returning Boards to throw out the 
votes of whole districts wJiere the majority was Democratic. 

The Returning Boards did not confine themselves simply to 
adding to the Republican side votes in cases of clearly estab- 
lished intimidation. That would have been too uncertain a 
way of procuring a Republican majority. The process would 
have been tedious and thorny. It was safer and more ex- 
peditious to throw out the whole vote and rely on Republican 
majorities elsewhere to carry the count ! This eminently 
judicial method met with the warm approval of the Republi- 
can " visiting statesmen." 

Discerning men throughout the country had, long previous 
to their "visit," reached tlie conclusion that the inexplicable 
difficulty exi)erienced in counting the vote, simply j^ortended 
an attempt of the Republican managers to undo, somehow or 
other, the j^opular decision which had, according to universal 
opinion, called Mr. Tilden to the presidential chair. The 
event proved ho^v sound was that judgment. 

In the case of one of these "visiting statesmen," it has to be 
especially noted that, witliout authority of law, and simply 
at the request of General Grant, he went to New Orleans. 
He had subsequently to admit, on oath, that he had charge 
of the returns of West Feliciana parish; that, in one of the 
inner rooms of the Custom-house, then in charge of Packard, 
he examined the affidavits, and, when they toere not sufficient- 



10 

lyfidl, he prepared, or had prepared, additional interrogato- 
ries (!) to bring them within the rules adopted by the Return- 
ing Board. This testimony, tJtus prepared^ went back to the 
Returning Board, and West Feliciana, with its Democratic ma- 
jority, was thrown out. This gentleman, after having so acted, 
sat on the Electoral Commission as a judge upon his own 
doings, and voted down any enquiry into them ! 

He is now the Republican nominee for the presidency. As 
it would be unfair to pass over so marked a service to his 
country without signalling him out, it is proper the reader 
should know his name. It is James A. Garfield. It may be 
further observed that, whereas, previous to the appearance 
of the "visiting statesmen" the delay in reaching a count 
had been protracted beyond all precedent, that result was 
reached very soon after the "visit." It did not, however, 
produce a like effect upon the two contending parties. 

By the Republican party it was hailed with joy. By those 
who, all over the country, were tacitly if not oj^enly allowed 
to have on their side an overwhelming majority of the popu- 
lar vote, it was at once pronounced to be the result of willful 
and deliberate fraud. 

The Congressional struggle which resulted in the compro- 
mise by which an Electoral Commission was appointed to sit 
in judgment upon this most weighty matter, may be dismissed 
briefly. 

With such a vast-reaching issue before them, it was plainly 
the duty of the whole House of Representatives to have taken 
cognizance at once of the alleged falsification of returns, no 
matter in favor of, or against, whom ; of the forgeries said to 
have been committed in the signatures to the electoral certi- 
ficates, and to have probed this grave matter to the very bot- 
tom. What, even supposing this searching scrutiny had de- 
prived one or the other party of power for four years ? Were 
they not the representatives of the wJiole people ? And was 
it not imperative upon them to determine wliat had been the 
expressed will of the majority of the people, and to see that 



11 

will respected and enforced ? What had party politics to do 
with the deciding of sncli a question as this to patriotic men ? 
If the Bepublican party feared tliey had been defeated in the 
election, did not lionor and duty alike malve it incumbent on 
them, in their twofold character of American citizens and rep- 
resentatives of the j)eople, rather to be instant than reluctant 
in demanding that no power should be intrusted to their lead- 
ers or themselves which was not borne to them on the voice 
of a majority of the people ? 

This was their grand opportunity. Pure patriotism beck- 
oned them one way. Interest led them another. It will be 
long before they again have such a glorious oi^^oortunity (by 
sacrificing, if right demand it, their power for a term) of 
stamping themselves with the sign of unflinching and uncom- 
promising patriotism. They have wTitten this page of their 
history and leff it for posterity. It is grim and scorching ! 

Suffice it to say that their determination not to examine into 
these charges was so manifest that the appointment of an 
Electoral Commission was proposed and accepted by both 
sides as a compromise. 

Whether this action was or was not constitutional, need form 
no part of this statement. Let us come to the Electoral Com- 
mission itself. 

This body was composed largely of judges of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, therefore of men to whom the 
whole country looked up as to the inflexible dispensers of even- 
handed justice, men to the foot of whose justice-seat not even 
the whisper of popular distrust had ever yet penetrated ; men 
upon whom the eye of the country and of the whole world 
was fastened in the stress of this great crisis of the Great Re- 
public. 

This High Court of Equity comprised judges whose political 
principles and affiliations, in so far as tluy loere simphj citi- 
zens, drew a majority of them towards the Rej^jublican party. 



12 

Being in this case judges alone, and not politicians, by reason 
of the character and in virtue of the commission intrusted to 
them, to decide between the two great parties in the gravest 
and weightiest cause ever presented for adjudication in any 
country, who would dare, in their regard, even to hint the sus- 
picion of partisanship ? 

They were to inquire into and determine the q uestion : which 
of the two candidates for the office of President of the United 
States had received the electoral votes of the States in dis- 
pute. 

As was fitting, both parties to this great national case were 
represented by counsel whose names, as of the greatest in their 
profession, are household words in the land. 

One would naturally suppose that these advocates were 
there to elicit and watch evidence for their respective clients, 
the two great parties ; and that the Electoral Commission, 
with its majority of Republican judges, was there to receive 
and give judgment upon that evidence. The contrary being- 
supposed, there was, to the ordinary mind, no reason whatever 
for the existence of the Commission. 

The Republican advocate contended that the members of 
the commission had no right to go behind the returns alleged 
to have been altered; that it was not within their competence 
to inquire into the forging of signarures to the electoral cer- 
tificates, although the other side offered to j)rove thsit forged 
signatures had been appended to them. In other words, he 
maintained that they had no right to take evidence at all. 

The Democratic advocate had actually to take in hand to 
prove to this Commission, or rather to its Republican mem- 
bers, that it was not only competent to them to take the evi- 
dence offered, but that, in virtue of their commission, it was 
their bounden duty to receive and pronounce upon this evi- 
dence. 

The Democratic members of the Commission, among them 



13 

tlie minority of the judges, maintained the soundness of this 
claim. 

The Republican members of the commission, among them 
the majority of the judges (all Republicans), denied it to a 
man. 

There being no tribunal superior to themselves to which 
recourse could be had for the decision of this most knotty 
point : they appealed to themselves and voted. 

On the point in question, and on all the issues collateral to 
it, the minority of secen (Democrats) voted in the negative, 
thereby affirming the competence of the commission to take 
evidence. The majority, eight (with the majority of the 
judges, Republicans), noted their own and their colleagues" 
incompetence to take evidence in the very case for the trial of 
lohich they had been constituted a tribunal of last resoft^ 
and in lohich the evidence offered was not only pertinent to^ 
hut absolutely decisive of the case ! 

They were not, however, consistent even with their own de- 
cision, for whereas in the case of Louisiana they refused to 
go behind the Governors certificate, on the plea that they 
had no right to do so ; in the case of Oregon they insisted on 
going behind the Governor's certificate and threw out the 
Democratic electoral vote. 

These astounding partisan decisions of eight Republicans^ 
among them the majority of the judges, resulted in the valida- 
tion of returns alleged, and subsequently proved to have been 
altered in favor of the Republican candidate, also in the vali- 
dation of the electoral certificates bearing forged signatures, 
in the rejection of the Democratic electoral vote of Oregon, 
and in the seating of the Republican candidate in the presi- 
dential chair. 

It is unnecessary to dilate upon this great national shame 
and humiliation. 



14 

A question, however, as applying to the case of Louisiana, 
may be asked : supposing the Secretary of the Treasury were 
informed that counterfeit thousand dollar bonds of the United 
States were being negotiated in New York ; but that it had 
been ascertained beyond a doubt that the counterfeiters were 
Treasury officials ; that they had committed their crime in the 
Treasury, and supposing, furthermore, the Secretary were to 
say that, under the circumstances, he could not question the 
genuineness of the bonds ? What then ? How long would he 
remain at the head of the Treasury Department ? 

Or, supposing the Secretary, taking another view of the case, 
should procure the arrest of the counterfeiters, and that, 
upon the ground that these counterfeit bonds had been en- 
graved and the signatures to them forged in the Treasury, a 
judge were to refuse to go heMnd the returns, and decline to 
receive evidence as to the character of the bonds \ What 
then ? 

Well, this is substantially what was done by the eight He- 
publicans who refused to take evidence that electoral returns 
had been falsified, and signatures to electoral certificates forged 
in favor of a Republican candidate for the presidency. 

The title to govern a great nation was in cause, and they 
would take no evidence, except such as was in favor of their 
own party ! How, had they been certain all the evidence 
would have turned out in their favor ? 

Strict regard for the laws of inductive enquiry renders it 
undesirable to assert that the unvarying unanimity of the 
votes of these eight Republican members of the Commission 
was the result of a conspiracy. 

In so far, however, as the resulting opinion of the nation is 
concerned, this unanimity must be held to have covered the 
most grievous series of coincident conmctions to which the 
collective judgment of eight men ever drove them. 

In any case, and this is the main point, this refusal to re- 



15 

ceive evidence, the substantiation of which would undoubtedly 
have barred the way of their own X3olitical candidate to the 
presidency, did do violence to the voice and will of the ma- 
jority of the American people in the choice of their Chief 
Magistrate. 

And, in so far as regards the Republican judges on the Com- 
mission, this violence was done to the voice of the Ameri- 
can people, by reason of refusal on the part of these same 
judges to do, or suffer to be done, that which, according to the 
code of every civilized nation in the world, they were bound 
to do ; that which sitting elsewhere in their capacity as judges 
of the Supreme Court they dare not refuse to do, and this be- 
cause the admission of evidence would have put in jeopardy 
the chances of their own political candidate for the presi- 
dency ! 

Lastly, these Republican judges were simply refusing to 
hear through its representatives what was to them, presum- 
ably, at least, and what was really in fact, the majority of the 
American people, pleading for the first and highest of its 
rights. 

In view of all this, is it unfair to say that these eight Re- 
publican members of the Electoral Commission, many of them 
judges of the Supreme Court, not only bore a part, but the 
weightiest and most responsible part, in defeating the will of 
the American people, by judicially gagging its advocates at 
the very foot of the justice-seat ? 

Here it is proper again to observe that this monstrous de- 
parture from all recognized principles and methods of judicial 
procedure by these eight Republicans, in favor of their own 
incriminated RejDublican politicians, who, according to the 
evidence offered, were guilty of high crimes and mis- 
demeanors, smote not only those who represented the Demo- 
cratic party ; it struck with equal force every Republican 
voter in the land, who, whatever the event, had the high- 
est right and title to count upon the strictest impartiality 



16 

of these judges ; it was a blow to the faith and conscience of 
every man in the country, who had hitherto seen in these 
judges of the Supreme Court the living impersonation of 
Supreme Justice ! 

On this head one further consideration may be commended 
to the attention of the American people. As far as the con- 
stitutional powers of the President of the United States are 
concerned, he stands somewhat on a par with the sovereign 
of Great Britain. Were the British monarchy elective instead 
of hereditary, and had the doings of the Returning Boards 
and their abettors taken place in England instead of here, 
these doings would have constituted high-treason, and the 
inauguration of their candidate would have amounted to the 
usurpation of a throne ! 

Give what names one may to the crimes by which their 
object was compassed (regard being had to the terms by which 
offices and dignities are designated by us), there can be no 
question that, in character and degree, these crimes are sub- 
stantially identical with those bearing in Great Britain the 
names just given ; and of this treason against the whole 
American people, the parties implicated in defeating by 
fraud, by perjury, by forgery and by force in the leash, the 
will of the majority of the nation were most undoubtedly 
guilty. 



WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 

THE DEFENCE AND PLEA. 



II. 

Political causes, of the miglity inherent force of tliose just 
described, are apt to work tliemselves oxit in correspondingly 
intense effects. 

Great crimes against the expressed will of a nation not 
unusually create a strain under which the moral endurance of 
ordinary men breaks down, and, among races of choleric tem- 
perament, the result is — blood. 

Our people have, since the outset of their history, displayed 
a singular jealousy of their liberty. They are possessed by 
this feeling as by a strong internal lire. But they have, in a 
larger measure than the majority of races, tlie power of niaster- 
ino' themselves; or, to use a trite phrase, of holding themselves 
well in hand. 

Still, on memorable occasions, they liave engaged in desper- 
ate and bloody wars rather tlian see one jot of their liberty 
abated. 

The spirit which thus urges them they have, for a tliousand 
years back, inherited from a warlike and liberty -loving an- 
cestry. 



18 

Did the political partisans wlio, in 1876, wrested from the 
majority of this people their prime right as freemen, measure 
the danger to whicli they were exposing the country when 
goading men thus constituted ? 

Did the elaborate military preparations made in Washing- 
ton previous to the installation of the unelected occupant of 
the White House, reflect any misgiving on this head among 
those who were violating the national will \ 

Because, if they did reflect any such misgiving, they also evi- 
denced a purpose, if necessary, to shed blood— the blood of 
American citizens, technically wrong should they have borne 
arms against the United States forces (wielded by the great Cap- 
tain of the war, himself a Republican, and in full sympathy 
with the usurpers), but most right in the demands for which 
those arms would have been taken up, just as right as the 
Union was when she crushed the South. 

How if one of those sudden impulses, which at times seize 
men smarting under a great wrong, had brought the United 
States troops, forced to support the wrong, into collision 
with those who most certainly represented the right. 

Can any of the conspirators against the popular will, or 
their abettors, inform the world what would have ensued, and 
what would have been the final result; how long it would have 
taken to reach that result, and what would have been the cost? 

The time of any such danger is now past ; but there were 
days when men spoke of such an event as of a not impossible 
thing. 

It is, on every hand, well that the people bore themselves 
calmly. 

But had any such popular outbreak occurrred, who shall 
measure the responsibility of those who gave the people a 
colorable excuse for it by the violation of their rights % 

And as Mr. Tilden was the lawfully elected President of the 



19 

United States, it must be said that his good sense and patriot- 
ism, in this crisis, are equalled only by the calm fortitude 
with which lie has borne the transcendent wrong suffered in 
his person by the American people, and the serene, disdain- 
ful silence by which he has met and vanquished the studied 
obloquy of triumphant crime. 

If the Republican managers, or consj^irators, aware of the 
high mettle of our people, looked this great danger fairly in 
the face and chose deliberately to encounter the risk, then 
they not only betrayed the highest trust reposed in them by 
their own constituents, but they played the peace and welfare 
of the whole nation as a stake for what Secretary Evarts has 
lately called " the success of a few individuals." 

And now, at last, -with this terrible record, they have once 
again to face the American people. Summoned, too, before 
this great tribunal are those of the participants in this ignoble 
drama who still remain in Congress, all strong in the belief 
that the great wrong has been condoned and forgotten, un- 
mindful of the fact that the day— not of any man or of any 
party — but the day of the whole American people, united to 
right this great wrong had yet to come ; the day when they 
were to be taught, from the high places, of the mighty injustice 
they had suffered, \vhen light was to be flooded in on these 
transactions, when the finger of inexorable history was to 
beckon them back four years, and point to the elect from 
among their Republican representatives tearing the diadem 
from the brow of Liberty and Hinging it in the dust, whilst 
the whole body of those representing the Republican voters 
of the land looked on approvingly, and applauded as though 
for a national triumph ; the day, in line, when patriotic men 
of all parties were to grasp each other by the hand, and ask 
with kindling eye : " Shall this again heV 

That day has come at last ! 

It has, and with it to the American people the high dut}' of 
signally vindicating to the world the one principle which lies 
at the very root of Republican liberty. 



20 

Had the " Republican party'' (in the restricted sense given 
to that term in this argument) known the day of its oppor- 
tunity, no such vindication of the right of the majority woukl 
now be needed at the Jiands of the nation. Had they seen 
what their solidarity witli the conspirators imported — when 
fully apprized by their leaders of what was going forward- 
had they been able to compass the truth that hi the defeat of 
the voice of the majority of the nation, the minority— their 
own constituents— sustained equal outrage, that outrage, as 
before pointed out, being wrought in their favor, then, even 
if conscience and honor had not urged them, the highest kind 
of x)olicy would have bent them to the most searching investi- 
gation. They would have joinc-d hands with their political 
opponents in this keen scrutiny, and, having been mainly in- 
strumental in forcing the discovery of their own defeat at the 
hands of the majority of the people, they would have sui'- 
rendered the high places of the nation to their opponents, and 
have stood before the country and tlie world as Republicans 
in the highest and truest sense of the term; they would have 
raised up a beacon to the light of which all the peoples of the 
earth would have bent their gaze with joy; they would have 
erected a monument to the genius of true Republican liberty 
destined to outlive 2ii\y and every trophy raised by the hand 
of man. 

Instead of this, they are to-day on trial for treason to the 
American peox)]e. Already the iirst voices in their defense 
have been flung across the land. 

The great Teutonic political chameleon*, losing sight of the 
majestic and irritated presence in which his (pro. tern.) 
"party " stands, has tried to narrow the issue down to a question 
of the general material well-being and prosperity of the 
country. This, he calndy assumes, having come to the 
people under the rule of a Republican administration, has, 
therefore, come through it. Trade revived, specie payments 
resumed, the wheels of industry in quasi-perpetual motion, 

* What might be classically termed Mr. Schurz's sartorial versatility, or, in other words, the 
ease with which he can turn his political coat, needs but a passing allusion. 



21 

America the gTcanary of the \vorkl--all tliis, if he ho believed, 
is due to a sagacious, and mucli-combining and contriving Ri- 
publican administration. 

Any one skei)tical about tlie soundness of this claim, might 
be disposed to aslv whetlier the unpropitious slvies wliich hist 
year destroyed the harvests of the old world, and tlie genial 
weather which tilled our granai'ies to overfloAving, were special! \- 
and exclusively at the disposal of Republican administrations; 
also, whether the great influx of gold which came to us in ex- 
change for our crops, crossed the Atlantic at the beck of Mr 
Schurz's colleagues; further, whether the revival of trade and 
industry was not more due to the enforced economy and 
keener business foresight of the people during the last seven 
years, than to any profound combination of a handful of 
politicians. 

For, if the Republican party claim, perforce, that these great 
benefits have accrued to the nation through their administra- 
tion, then they must, in all consistency, lay to their souls all 
the balm which can come from the great flnancial crisis of 
1873 and the dreadful depression of subsequent years. 

But, even allowing all these extravagant claims in favor of 
the Republican administration to be well-founded, does the 
political Sunjfoioer who has advanced them imagine that the 
American people are already so degenerate as to hold mere 
material prosperity higher than any other good i Has the 
long period of years spent by him in this country taught him 
nothing better or higher with regard to the whole business 
community of this land than that they are ready and willing 
to barter away their chief right as freemen to the first comer 
who will offer them gold in exchange '. Does he think 
that this nation can be coerced by a factious minority, as 
though it were a petty German princedom, and then cajoled 
into acquiescence in the wrong, like a woman to whom a hand- 
ful of costly trinkets is tendered as a solace for her lost virtue< 

If so, he strangely mistakes the temper and mettle of this 



22 

people. He gravely underrates the fire of liberty by which it 
is i^ossessed, and which, genial enough when unfanned by vio- 
lence done that liberty, is terrible when it bursts into flame ! 

Mr. Schurz will do well to place this among his few 'perma- 
nent political convictions anent the American people. 

Next in the order of time (as a mouthpiece of the "party"), 
vastly prior in the order of intellect, comes the Secretary of 
State, the renowned, but ethereal advocate, whose greatest 
forensic feat it will ever remain to have argued the highest 
judges in the land (Rei^ublicans) into the conviction (?) that, 
in a cause where the majority of the nation was pleading for 
its prime right, and offering conclusive evidence in assertion 
and vindication of that right, the aforesaid judges and the 
whole Electoral Commission were not competent to receive that 
evidence. 

He, too, using one of the great journals of the day as his 
mouthpiece, dilates upon the iDrosperity of the country, avoids 
the great issue upon which men of all parties are already 
pronouncing, and exclaims: "What is there, I say, in the 
" political agitations of the day, that equals the magnitude of 
" a policy which the statistics of our commercial relations 
" for the last year would naturally suggest to any man who 
" prefers the prosperity of the country to the success of a few 
"individuals?" 

This is not surprising from the pocket Demosthenes, wlio 
could persuade judges it was their duty, according to the con- 
stitution, not to take evidence. 

His argument is, in drift, identical with that of the Teutonic 
chameleon, but, as would naturally be exjjected, is more 
carefully constructed and insidiously advanced. 

It is proper to be liberal in the space accorded to so great 
an advocate and statesman. 

First, then, Mr. Evarts claims that the prosperity of the 



23 

country, as seen in the statistics of onr commercial rela- 
tions for tlie past year, is due to the magnitude of the policy 
of the Rejmblican administration. 

" The magnitude of a iiolicy'- has an amplitude of sound 
about it which reminds one of the " ampuUas et sesquipedalia 
verba,''- against the use of which Mr. Evarts should have been 
warned when he read Horace. 

The irreverent public may be tempted to ask whether it 
was the "magnitude of the Republican administration's poli- 
cy" which gave us such enormous crops and such favorable 
markets for them last year ; whether it was this same "mag- 
nitude" which induced buyers in Europe to pay for them ; 
whether it was this "magnitude" which tempted the railways 
of the country to make immense sums by carrying them to 
the seaboard; whether, finally, it was this "m.agnitude" 
which sent our enormous gains circulating through every 
channel of trade and industry. 

A curious problem would be, how large a proportion of this 
^'magnitude" is claimed for the State Papers of Mr, Evarts. 

In the second place, Mr. Evarts claims that, to any man who 
prefers the prosperity of the country to the success of a feio 
individuals, this pet "magnitude" of his is indefinitely 
greater than any "magnitude" to be found in the political 
agitations of the day. 

About this the American people will have something to say 
in November. It may turn out that their idea of comparative 
"magnitudes" differs slightly from that entertained by the 
illustrious Electoral Commission advocate. 

Pending this expression of the nation's idea in November, 
it may be pertinent to observe that tliQfew indimduals whose 
success must be postponed to the prosperity brought about by 
this "magnitude," may, according to the statement of the 
illustrious advocate, be either Republicans or Democrats. 



24 

The feio individuals of the Republica.n party whose success 
in 1876 was purchased by violence to the people's will, in other 
words, by high treason, will have again to attempt success in 
November next. They will then be confronted b^^ the /etc 
individuals whose success at the last election (/. e., the vote 
of the majority of the nation) was wrested from them, but, 
from all appearances, with a much greater majority of the 
American people at their back, and they in no mood to be 
trifled with. 

According to this statesman, the summons, by the vote of 
the majority of the nation, to wield the powers of the whole 
American people, simply means ^^the success of a few indi- 
Diduals.^'' This is the impression under which the conspira- 
tors of 1876, their counsellors and abettors evidently labored, 
thinking that in stifling the voice of the nation, they were 
merely thwarting " the success of a few individuals ^ 

Again, unless Mr. Evarts means to claim that it is absolute- 
ly essential to the continuance of the present prosperit}^ of 
the country, that ^HJie few indioiduals'''' (of whose success 
the eliciting of the nation s voice is, according to him, a 
mere incident), should be Republican, then he must acknowl- 
edge that a further lease of x)Ower to himself and colleagues 
is a matter of no moment whatever to the people. 

More might be said upon this point, but here leave will be 
taken of Mr. Evarts' "magnitude," and of ''■the success of a 
few indimduals ,^^ and a moment will be devoted to another 
of his enunciations. 

" If," says the great Electoral Commission advocate, "the 
supporters of the Ri^publican platform to-day had given the 
administration their hearty support three years ago, it would 
not be a question of doubt to-day as to which party will suc- 
ceed in the coming election " (New York Herald, Sunday, 
August 15th, 1880). 

Then there really is a doubt in the mind of the Secretary of 
State, as to who the few individuals will be, of whose 
success the election is to be a trifling incident, as it were. 



25 

Mr. Evarts may console himself: there is but very slender 
doubt in the mind of the American people. 

But here it is to the purpose to inquire how it came tliat 
*'Hhe supporters of the RepuUlcan platform of to-day, did 
not give the administration their hearty s^tpport three years 
ago ? " 

Because, knowing the work they had done was in the highest 
degree criminal, and that, in accomplishing it, they had run 
great risks, they discovered that, after his inauguration, tlie 
chief beneficiary of the crime was grievously incommoded 
by a species of stunted conscience. Even this mitigated 
form of the ailment has, for some j^ears past, been the 
" unknown quantity," in the great equation of Republi- 
can politics. The unexpected solution of the problem in 
the unelected President disconcerted them. They wanted 
to have him body and soul, and therefore insisted on the 
excision of this, to them, mental or moral tumor. The 
patient was obstinate and the physicians deserted him. After 
having used this amiable but colorless nullity for tlie fuithei-- 
ance of their designs, tliey shrank from him as soon as the 
discovery was made that he had a " conscience," of what de- 
gree of tenuity soever it might be. Conscience was the one 
instrument discarded by them in elevating him ; how then 
would they allow him to use it as a weapon against them 
now \ 

This is why the actual props of the Republican plat- 
form gave the present incumbent of the White House no sup- 
port at the outset of his administration; this is why they have 
never fully countenanced him, and wliy to day he excites the 
pity of magnanimous opponents, avIio see in liini a tool 
disdainfully thrown aside by the ^\feio iiidiDkludls'^ who 
have used him, and that without even the mention of his 
name. This is why they boldly defy him, and, in the teeth 
of his Civil Service Reform professions, levy an oppressive tax 
on every officeholder in the country, he, meanwhile, a power- 
less spectator of this tyranny, wrought to secure, as Mr. Evarts 
tersely puts it, the success of a few individuals. 



26 

It is an evil thing to be leagued with wrong-doers, especially 
when the aggrieved party is a nation nerved to smite. 

And although the great advocate of the Electoral Commis- 
sion will, as he says, '"contribute in due time his voice toward 
the victory," whicli the Republican nominees are to achieve 
in November (always Mr. Evarts), he would nevertheless do 
well to bear in mind that the victory in which he sees simply 
the " success of a few individuals^'''' has to be borne to those 
who win it on the voice of the majority of the American peo- 
ple. Have his ^'■feio individuals'" fully counted this time 
with that great constituency 'i 



'•J 



TWO PICTURES. 



III. 

Those who directed the conspiracy by which the popular 
vote was overthrown in 1876, as well as the managers generally 
of the Republican party, are reputed to be men of uncommon 
political sagacity and fertility of resource. 

Unless blind to the signs of the times, and deaf to the omi- 
nous mutterings borne to them in divers shapes and ways, 
but chiefly through the press, they must long ago have made 
up their minds that the j)resent election was no common emer- 
gency to their party. They well knew that the betrayed vic- 
tors in the last election would arraign them for, and make a 
crucial issue of, the violence wrought against the popular 
will at the last election. As sagacious men, they would natu- 
rally be expected to cast about for some means of relieving 
the "party" from the stress of public opinion which would 
surely bear it down, if not diverted; as men of resource, they 
would presumably endeavor to effect that diversion by an 
exclusive ax)peal to the strongest side of their four years' ad- 
ministration (by whatever means the success of the few indl- 
mduals had been attained) and by selecting for the suffrages 
of the nation the man of the very cleanest record to be found 
in their party. 

Of the former of these two things, their appeal ad honum 
puMicitm, due notice has been taken. 



2S 

The opportunit}^ to do the latter offered itself to them at 
Chicago. Singularly enough, however, the names most 
prominently brought before them were those of General 
Grant, Senator Blaine and Secretary Sherman. 

In selecting the second of these candidates, the Republican 
"party" would have ]^ut forward a pronounced and tiery 
partisan, but withal a kind of statesman. 

For reasons previously given, however, no candidate, how- 
ever good, put forward by the Republican managers, could, 
with any show of right, claim the support of the Republican 
voters. The plain duty of these voters lay in putting (hefew 
individuals (of whose success Mr. Evarts makes the sole 
Q'alson d^etre of an election to consist) out of office as traitors 
to the whole people. Still if a form had to be gone through, 
Mr. Blaine was certainly the best man to bear the honors of 
the ceremony. 

The third term idea and the stupendous rascality of General 
Grant's subordinates during his terms of office, rendered it un- 
desirable to project him into the campaign. 

Secretaiy Sherman's financial ability inclined a large pro- 
portion of the business men of the country towards him. 
But he was deeply involved in tliose transactions which 
placed Mr. Hayes in the White House, and himself in the 
United States Treasury. 

Here the opportunity offers to do Secretary Sherman justice 
in another direction. For this purpose a slight digression is 
necessary. 

Mr. Sherman's skill in the realm of finance serves only to 
throw into relief his obtuseness elsewhere. 

In a dropsical speech made at Washington on the 19th o 
August, after attempting, to revive the already buried war- 
feeling of North against South, he draws a contrast between 
the RejDublican and Democratic candidates. 



29 
Of the former lie says : ''he sprang from the people." 
How could General Garfield liel]) that ? 
'' He was educated in a hard school." 

That special kind of academic cursus would certainly have 
been dispensed with if either General Garfield or his jmrents 
could have avoided it. Otherwise, if this fortuitous kind of 
training be so distinct a claim on popular favor, why does 
not the Secretary recommend the man zoJio hetrayed him at 
Chicago to bring up his sons as canal -boat boys? And why 
not abolish the public school system of education ? 

Again, Mr. Sherman informs the country that the Republi- 
can nominee "has pushed his way onward until he now 
occupies a i^iace of the greatest distinction." 

If by "place of the greatest distinction"' be meant the 
position of Republican candidate for the presidency, Mr. 
Garfield does undoubtedly occupy it ; but that j^osition he 
holds b}' having betrayed and sacrificed Mr. Sherman's own 
very self at Chicago. 

One cannot but admire the sturdy fortitude, worthy a 
better cause, with which Mr. Sherman lent his palate to all the 
bitterness which the enforced utterance of these words must 
have brought him. But the popular feeling on that point 
will be somewhat attenuated by the reflection that the 
"leek" had been previously tendered to Mi-. Sherman by the 
Hon. Roscoe Conkling, first in the person of Governor 
Cornell, and, secondly, in the nomination of Chester A. 
Arthur, and that, on both occasions, this historic luit unsavory 
esculent had been manfully swallowed by him to the last 
fibre ! 

jSTow, if by "distinction" be meant anything other than what 
has just been hinted, then it must be observed that the term 
"distinction" is one of great latitude andelasticit}^ TlK^e is 
a "distinction" which carries with it a measure of honorable 



30 

fame. There is also a "distinction" coupled in the minds of 
upright men with the idea of ill-reeking notoriety — even of 
infamy. To which of these does the Secretary refer in the 
case of his betrayer ? 

The Secretary having, for the nonce, assumed the role of 
portrait-painter in ordinary to the "/eio indim duals.'' 
must needs essay a likeness of the illustrious man, to whom 
the great call of his country has come unsought, and in 
whose hands her tlag has been gloriously upheld, from the 
time when, as a stripling, he first faced her foes on the bloody 
fields of Mexico, to the day when he shattered the array of 
her doughtiest antagonist on the hills of Gettysburg. 

The Republican financier first studies him from an economic 
point of view, and discovers that he has been "fed at the 
public expense." 

This from a man who has stood at the public crib as long 
as John Sherman, is the climax of self-scourging. 

What have the officers and soldiers of the United States 
Army to say to the concentrated meanness which could give 
voice to an utterance such as that ? 

Is there not another conspicuous soldier who has also under- 
gone this military suckling, as it were, at the public breast ? 
Can he be au}^ relative of John Sherman? He bears the same 
name ; has borne it well hitherto, and will bear it still better 
when he lays before the eye of the nation those letters of his 
which drew from the unsullied Democratic soldier such high- 
mettled, patriotic response. 

Now comes the honne-houche. ' '//, ' ' says the great utilitarian 
Secretary, " 7^e would desert tlie Democratic party ^ against 
which he had fought for four years, the Re-publicans loould 
elect Mm to some responsible offi.ce.'''' 

In presence of the unvarnished baseness which could prof- 
fer such a bribe, to so illustrious a commander, with such 
conditions attached, criticism itself recoils. 



31 

To resume the thread of the narrative. The straggle be- 
tween the Grant and Blaine men was so determined and 
protracted, and so slender the apparent possibility of either 
solution or compromise, the complimentary vote given to 
Secretary Sherman so large, that it was fairly open to the 
managers to have gone over to a capable and stainless can- 
didate if such could be found. 

This was their opportunity. Instead of embracing it, they 
cast their votes for the very man who had, in 1876, been fore- 
most in defeating the will of the people, and in fastening upon 
the honored title of President of the United States the scan- 
dal, the shame, and the stain of fraud ; the man in whose 
person is epitomized the history of the whole series of 
infamous transactions which resulted in the overthrow of tlie 
popular vote and the seating of an unelected President in the 
chair of Washington. 

Were the nominee of the Republican managers the best 
Republican in the Avorld, the argument for his exclusion 
from the presidency, in order that the popular will might he 
vindicated, which was outraged by his party in 1876, would 
still be overwhelming. 

Supposing the one great issue absent from this election, 
namely, the vindication of the principle that the voice of the 
majority shall j)revail, it might then be needful to closely 
scrutinize the character of candidates in order to determine 
a choice. But for the purposes of this argument it is 
unnecessary to inquire whether the terrible stains which 
are said to rest on Mr. Garfield's character exist in the full 
measure currently given them. It is fairer to him, as a candi- 
date already overweighted, to let him take his chance with 
the American people (and among them, more especially, with 
honorable Republican voters, unhampered by what is aptly 
termed "the machine"), on the broad basis of the issue 
raised in this paper. 

Sinkine: for a moment the consideration of this issue it re- 



32 

mains to be seen in what shape and with what manner of 
standard-bearer the party whose rights were wrested from 
them in 1876 now come before the nation. 

Among the many distinguished and honorable names pro- 
posed at the Cincinnati Convention, there were some eminent 
ones. Chief among these was that of the rightful President 
of the United States, Samuel J. Tilden. His conspicuous 
acquirements, his great services to his own state of New 
York, his generally acknowledged pre-eminence, apart from 
the fact that he had, as the phrase goes, been counted out at 
the election of 1876, which made him the lawful President, 
pointed to him as the man who would in all likelihood receive 
the largest vote of his party. Advancing years and failing 
health urged him positively to decline a renomination. 

Who then should carry high the banner of the nation smit- 
ten on the cheek in 1876 ? 

The question was soon answered. There sprung into life 
among the delegates one of those quickening instincts which, 
now and again in moments when high resolve is needed, are 
apt to sway the decision of even great minds rather than 
the tardy outcome of labored thouglit. Tlie spirit of nn ex- 
pectant nation, with arm nerved and uplifted to strike for its 
greatest right, was upon them. That nation wanted to-day 
no mere party tool init forward simply to do the behests of 
those placing him in power ; its voice called in miglity tones 
for one ui^on whom no party could have a claim save only the 
party represented in tlie whole body of the people. It 
would, this time at least, luive a man without i'les^ without 
fear, without stain, to lead it. Those to whom fell the 
great duty of making the choice, gave the nation this man in 
the person of Winfield Scott Hancock. 

Is there cause for wonder that men of all parties greeted 
his name with loud acclaim I or, that at its sound a sudden 
fear swept into the hearts of those who for four years 
had been the impersonation of violence done to the 



33 

majesty of the people ? or tliat there was seen in the ranks of 
the Republican voters all over the land, a loosening such as 
betokens a break in columns on a battle-field i 

No ! room for surprise there is none. 

For the record of his life is one unbroken story of stern per- 
formance of duly, unstained honor, sti-ict probity, high 
achievement in battle for the whole Union, magnanimous treat- 
ment of the vanquished — his j-ebellious brothers, but still his 
brothers — and lastly, profound resj^ect for the laws and con- 
stitution, in presence of which he sheathed his sword, when 
an almost absolute command made him responsible to him- 
self alone for his acts, and when higher authority, before 
which he quailed not in upholding the rights of a vanquished 
people, would have had that sword still unsheathed, stretching 
out his merciful hands over that people — the first to proclaim 
in tlie face of the victorious North, still heated from the dread- 
ful conflict, their inalienable rights as American citizens. 

By a strange stroke of fate, the man who, because of this 
signal service to the cause of freedom and country, denuinded 
his dismissal from the United States armv, is now soliciting 
the suffrages of the nation as liis Republican antagonist in 
the impending presidential election.* 

What wonder that the name of Hancock has spread dismay, 
as though an ague, through the ranks of those who dread, but 
can neither despise nor hate him ? 

What wonder if the unsullied lustre of a life's history sucli 
as his, should dazzle and bewilder those beyond whose power 
it lies to dim or tarnish it ? 

Verily, the day of the nation, the nation's man, and witli 
them the hour of retribution have come ! 

And now, forsooth, having despaired of finding even a 
speck upon the escutcheon of the people's leadei', those 

* For full details of Mr. Garfield's action in the premises see Appendix. 



34 

wlio cling to power witli tlie grip of the drowning have 
discovered that the President of the United States ought to 
be a statesman, and one learned in constitutional law ! 

It is, and will remain, one of General Hancock's chief rec- 
ommendations, that he has never been a statesman, in the 
sense of party managers, viz. : a politician. 

But if the word statesman be meant to import one who, 
knowing the constitution of his country, has championed it 
aloud when others similarly situated dared not uplift their 
voice ; if, to be a statesman means to be one who, in memor- 
able circumstances, chose to incur the high disi^leasure of those 
eager to disregard it rather than to shut his ears to its com- 
mands, then General Hancock is a statesman in an exalted 
sense of the term. At any rate, he appears to be quite states- 
man enough for the great majority of the American people. 

As to the President of the United States being equipped 
with a profound knowledge of constitutional law — this claim, 
coming from the men wlio advance it, does not lack a certain 
spice of the amusing. 

A party which was content for eight years with the amount 
of that commodity discoverable in the brain of General 
Grant, and which viewed with complacency the several ex- 
ceedingly constitutional acts to which its jDossession urged 
him, especially in the Southern states, ought not to be too 
fastidious ! 

The more especially so, as, at Chicago, they showed them- 
selves tolerably willing to accept that same amount of the 
commodity from him for a further term of four years. 

How far the mind of the harmless gentleman whom the 
Republican managers have so rudely and ignominiously dis- 
carded may be impregnated with this indispensable legal 
quintessence it is bootless here to inquire. 

That amiable weakling should be allowed to retire unmo- 



lested from his usurped position, and during the remnant of 
his term be given a chance to recover from the atmosphere in 
which he has been forced to live. 

No ! the truth is, the American people are neitlier in quest 
of profound statesmen of the type furnished by the Republi- 
can "party" for their work in the Soutliern States, nor of 
men widely acquainted with constitutional law, as under- 
stood CO by General Grant and the foremost promoter of the 
usurpation of 1876; they are just at present seeking- for 
nothing ; they are merely waiting for the early days of 
November, when they will vindicate their chief right as 
freemen, and put in the highest place of the nation truth, 
honor, j^robity, valor and reverence for the laws and consti- 
tution in the person of General Winfield Scott Hancock. 



.a^ff:eii<tidx:k:. 



&arfieli Tries to Legislate General Haicoci Oit of Office 



A Faithful Officer to be Removed because He Obeyed 
the Law and would not Govern with the Sword! 



GARFIELD CONDEMNED BY HIS OWN WORDS 



HANCOCK'S SUPPOET OF CIVIL LAW MADE A CRIME BY GARFIELD. 



In January, 1868, Andrew Johnson was President, U. S. 
Grant was general of the army, and Winlield S. Hancock 
was major-general in command of Louisiana and Texas. 

November 29, 1867, Hancock assumed command and issued 
his famous Order No. 40. It contained these words ; 

" When insurrectionary force has been overthrown and peace established, and 
the civil authorities are ready and willing to perform tiieir duties, the military 
power should cease to lead, and the civil administration resume its naiural anil 
rightful dominion. Solemnly impressed with these views, the (ieneral aiiMountes 
that the great principles of American liberty are still the lawful inlieriiaiice of 
this people, and ever should be. The riglit of trial by jury, tlie Jiaheas corpus, 
the liberty of the press, the freedom of speech, the natural rights of pe'sous, and 
the rights of property must be preserved." 



38 
From the Congressional Globe, January 13, 1868, page 489 : 

Mr. Garfield : I ask unanimous consent to offer for consideration and action, 
a bill to reduce and improve tlie military establishment by discliarging one major- 
general. 

Tlie bill was read. It provides that the army of the United 
States shall be reduced by the discharge from military service 
of the major-general who was the last commissioned in that 
grade before January, 1868, to take effect from its passage, so 
there shall be but four major-generals in the army. 

Mr. Garfield : I hope the bill will be allowed to come in, and then we can act 
on it in the morning. 

Objection was made, and Mr. Garfield said he would bring 
it uj) the first thing on Monday next. 

Major-General Winfield S. Hancock was commissioned ma- 
jor-general on July 26, 1866, and he was the last person com- 
missioned in that grade before January, 1868. 

Thus we see that within six weeks after Hancock issued his 
Order No. 40, Garfield, being at the time Chairman of the Mili- 
tary Committee, moved a bill to remove him from office. This 
was not to retire nor to pension him, but to punish him. 

This bill was not heard of again, but House Bill No. 439, 
came from the Committee on Reconstruction on that day 
(January 13, 1868), through Mr. Bingham. 

That bill contained the following sections : 



"■is 



Sec. 2. And he it further enacted, That for the speedy enforcement of the act 
entitled "An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel states," 
passed March second, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and the several acts sup- 
plementary thereto, the general of the army of the United States is hereby 
authorized and required lo enjoin by special orders upon all officers in command 
within the several military departments within said several states, the perform- 
ance of all acts authorized by said several laws above recited, at his discretion, by 
removing by his order from command any or ail of said commanders, and detail 
other officers of the United States army, not below the rank of colonel, to 
perform all the duties and exercise all the" powers authorized by said several acts, 
to the end that the people of said several states may speedily recognize civil 
governments, republican in form, in said several states, and be restored to poli- 
tical power in the Union. 

Sec. 3. And he it further enacted, That the general of the army may remove 
any or all civil officers now acting under the several provisional governments 
within said several disorganized states, and appoint others to discharge the duties 
pertaining to their respective offices, and may do any and all acts which by said 
several laws above mentioned are authorized to be done by the several command- 
ers of the military departments within said states ; and so mucli of said acts, 
or of any act, as authorizes the President to detail the military commanders to 
said military departments, or to remove any officers who may be detailed as 
herein provided, is hereby repealed. 



39 

The 5 til section made any interference by force with the 
orders of the general of the army (Grant), or any refusal or 
neo-lect to carry out the statute, a high misdemeanor, j)unish- 
able by a $5,000 fine and two years' imi^risonnient. 

This statute aimed at compelling Hancock to obey the 
orders of Grant, the general, and. not of Johnson, the Presi- 
dent ; and it empowered General Grant to remove Hancock if 
lie obeyed Johnson and not Grant. It also gave the general 
of the army full power to do everything he saw fit to do in 
each of the millitary departments without any control of the 
President. 

Its real omimus was the effort of Garfield, and those who 
acted with him, to subordinate the civil to the military power 
in all the South, and to remove Hancock because he recog- 
nized the law as superior to the sword. 

The bill was put upon its passage, and the Congressional 
Globe of January 17th, 1868, contains the following speech 
from James A. Garfield in its favor : 

" I call attention to the oath that eveiy officer and enlisted man takes before 
entering the army. It is in these words : 

"I do solemnly swear that 1 will bear true allegiance to the United States," 
* * * " and will observe and obey the orders of the President of the United 
States, and the orders of the officers appointed ovei me, according to the rules 
and articles for the government of the army of the United States." 

Now, should the President of the United States give to the humblest officer of 
the army an order contrary to the Pvules and Articles of War or to the law of 
Congress, the suboi'dinate can peremptorily refuse to obey, because tlie order lias 
not been given in accordance with the rules and regulations of the power which 
commands both him and the President. 

Now, if Congress can make laws assigning special duties to subordinate 
officers, such as judge-advocates, quartermasters and barrack-masters, what new 
doctrine is this that it may not also assign special duties to the general of tlie 
army ? The volumes of statutes are full of laws of Congress connnaiuling all 
classes of officers to perform all kinds of duties. It is now proposed to recjuire 
of the general of the army the performance of a special duty, namely, tlie duty 
of directing the operations of that part of the army whicli occupies the states 
lately in rebellion. If the general should neglect this duty the President, as 
commander-in-chief, can call him to account for such neglect, but he cannot pre- 
vent his obedience to the law. 

So nmch for the constitutionality of this section. I now come to inquire why 
this legislation is needed. It is because this Congress, in its work of restoring to 
their places the states lately in rebellion, authorized the President t-o assign the 
officers of the army to the duties prescribed in the law; and tlie President has 
made sucli use of that authority as to obstruct and delay the restoration of those 
states. 



40 

Without violating the letter of the law he has been able, in a great measure, to 
hinder the full and efficient execution of the law. His acts and those of his ad- 
visers are, to-day, the chief obstacles to the prompt restoration of the rebel states, 
and Congress proposes to remove those obstacles by transferring the power to the 
hands of one who has shown his loyalty to the country, and his willingness to 
obey the laws of the Union. 

Mr. Speaker, I will not repeat the long catalogue of obstructions which he has 
thrown in the way by virtue of the power conferred upon him in the reconstruc- 
tion law of 1867, but I will allude to one example where he has found in a major- 
general of the army a facile instrument with which more effectually to obstruct the 
work of reconstruction. This case is all the more painful because an 6></te«m« 
meriiorious officer, icho bears honm'nble scars, earned in battle for (he Union has been 
made a party to the political madness which has so long marked the conduct of 
the President. This general was sent into the district of Louisiana and Texas with 
a law of Congress in his hand, a law that commands him to see that justice is ad- 
ministered among the people of that country, and that no pretense of civil author- 
ity shall deter him from performing his duty, and yet we find that officer giving 
lectures in the form of proclamations and orders on what ought to be the relation 
between civil and military departments of the Government. We see him is.suing 
a general order in which he declares that the civil should not give way before 
the military. We hear him declaring that he finds nothing in the laws of Louisi- 
ana and Texas to warrant his interference in the civil administration of those 
states. It is not for him to say which should be first, the civil or the military, in 
that rebel community. It is not for him to search the defunct laws of Louisiana 
and Texas for a guide to his conduct. It is for him to obey the laws which he 
was sent there to execute. It is for him to aid in building up civil governments, 
rather than preparing himself to be the presidential candidate of that party which 
gave him no sympathy when he was gallantly fighting the battles of the country." 

The bill passed the House — yeas, 124, all Republicans ; 
nays, 45, all Democrats — James A. Grarfield voting yea (see 
House Journal, page 219). 



T h: E 



Duty of the People 



NOVEMBER NEXT. 



BY 



.1. ]»ft:i.%i ii-:i.i» rKi:>i<»R. 



COI'YKHJII IKI). ISSi). 



NKW V<ii;i< ; 

John r<>i.iii;>n -. I'lihlislur. UK N.i-s.ill Sr 



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